In the spring of the thirteenth year of Zhenguan, the railway from Chang'an City to Gaochang was officially opened to traffic. As the strategic role of railways has become more prominent, more and more people have realized their importance.

The popular saying now is that wherever the railway is built, the control of the Tang Dynasty will be extended. The railway has gradually become a symbol of Datang, after all, where there is a railway, there is a Datang iron horse, and where there is a Datang iron horse, it is naturally Datang.

After several years of accumulating strength, Li Er, who couldn't wait, sent a large army to recover the Han and Tang Dynasties on the second day of the opening of the railway... Strong old soil.

At the beginning, Li Er planned to let the dispatch king bomb Li Jing. But Li Jing himself took the initiative to refuse, saying that he was old and frail and only willing to write a military letter in the mansion.

He has already chosen to retreat bravely from the rapids, and naturally he will not go out of the mountain again. Then Li Er wanted Li Ji to get out of the horse again. But at this time, Li Ji was busy with the preliminary preparations for the expedition to Goguryeo, and there was no way to get out.

The other famous generals were either too old to fight long distances, or, like Li Xiaogong, remained neutral and not trusted during the Xuanwumen Change.

Cheng bites Jin like that, and Li Er is not very relieved. Zhang Shigui and Chang He want to protect the imperial city. Originally, Hou Junji, who was in the Mesozoic Era, was very suitable, but unfortunately at this time, he was already kicked to the Wa Kingdom and stood up for Li Chengqian.

Looking around, I couldn't find a suitable commander of the army. Fortunately, at this time, Li Jing took the initiative to come forward and recommended a general to Li Er.

This person's name is Su Dingfang, and in the early years, he accompanied Li Jing to defeat Dong. Turkic, during the Battle of Yinshan, he personally broke through the Golden Horde of Jieli Khan and made the first achievement.

Li Er recruited Su Dingfang to enter the palace and tested his skills on the sand table and map in the side hall. Su Dingfang naturally did not miss the opportunity and presented Li Er with his strategy of pacifying the Western Regions.

To be honest, there is nothing amazing about the strategy, that is, relying on the strong national strength of Datang to crush it directly. But Li Er is very satisfied with this, as the so-called good fighters have no outstanding achievements, and clever schemes are usually used when the weak side fights a strong opponent, and the success rate is very low.

Compared with the small countries in the Western Regions, and the big boss behind the small countries, the Western Turks, the strength of Datang is essentially a crushing situation.

At this time, it is far more important to be steady than to use tricks. As long as you don't make mistakes, there is basically no problem if you don't make big mistakes.

After the assessment, Li Er made an exception and promoted Su Dingfang to be the chief general of the pacification of the Western Regions, with Li Yunze as the logistics sima, and commanded 150,000 Tang troops to pacify the Western Regions.

When the news came out, Cheng Biting Jin, who had been preparing for a long time, was said to have smashed several beloved vases at home.

The trains from Chang'an City to the Western Regions were all requisitioned and converted to military use, and a large number of personnel and materials were loaded onto wagons and sent to Gaochang Kingdom, thousands of miles away.

The ability to deliver materials and personnel beyond the times is undoubtedly demonstrated at this moment. A train can send thousands of people or millions of catties of supplies, to say the least.

On the side of Chang'an City, it can send out dozens of trips a day. What matches the delivery capacity is the material production capacity of Datang in this era.

Whether it is clothing, food, housing and transportation, Datang has a terrifying productivity that is unimaginable for people in this era.

To give a simple example, when the herdsmen of the Western Turks were still wearing leather armor, the Tang army soldiers had already increased the armor rate of iron armor to more than ninety percent.

The reason why the rest of them wear leather armor is purely for convenience and not because they can't afford to supply. Datang has a hydraulic stamping machine obtained by Li Yunze, which can provide lighter and more powerful plate armor on a large scale.

The bows, arrows, knives and guns in the hands of the Western Turkic herdsmen had almost no chance of breaking through the defenses in the face of these plate armors.

The Tang Army will be issued an iron pot in each of them, and if it is damaged or lost, it can be used to get a new one. But here in the Western Turks, the iron pot is enough to exchange for cattle, sheep and horses.

When the Tang army went out to fight, they could eat meat almost every meal, and the supply of oil, salt, sugar and spices was sufficient, not to mention the staple food.

On the Western Turkic side, the herdsmen ate less than the horses of the Tang Army. Even the tents of the Tang army here were gradually replaced by tin houses, and when they set up camp, the logistics auxiliary soldiers and civilians were soon able to build a large number of movable board houses, and each sergeant had thick and warm cotton clothes, quilts, leather boots and gloves, and could sleep comfortably when it was cold.

On the side of the Western Turkic herdsmen, when it is cold, they can only hold the lamb and fight... Heating. With such an abundant supply of materials, as long as the Tang Army does not rot out of the skyline, it is almost impossible to fail.

And the Tang Army is precisely the most powerful legion of this era. Because the sergeants can get the status of the promotion by virtue of the battlefield exploits, so as not to be robbed of their merits by the generals.

At the same time, their families are wealthy and do not need to worry about fighting outside the home, while their families are starving to death at home.

That's right, it's the forbidden army of the Song Dynasty and the military household of the Ming Dynasty. In the Song and Ming dynasties, the kind of martial artists who were suppressed by the civilian clique to the point that they couldn't even do it would not exist in the Han and Tang dynasties.

Which civil official in the Tang Dynasty dares to say that he controls the military with literature, and lets the sergeants eat grass to fight, and the credit for winning the battle is the civilian official, and if the sergeants lose the battle to carry the black pot, then he will be beaten by the Xungui group in the court.

Here in Datang, even the family that can be called the ancestor of Han X does not dare to say such things.

The 150,000 Tang troops fought on the front line, and even more so the auxiliary soldiers and civilians who provided them with logistical support. In order to feed these people, it is even more important to make them have good food, good shelter and good transportation, which requires a lot of energy.

Li Yunze has no difficulty at all in doing these things. In addition to his ability and experience, as well as the help of professionals trained in technical schools over the years, Li Yunze also has a supercomputer tablet as an auxiliary tool.

If you want to know anything, just check the stored information. The Western Regions have a vast area, and it is nothing for the 150,000 Tang troops to be scattered into it.

As they move forward, the logistical supply lines are naturally gradually lengthened. Gaochang is no longer called Gaochang, and Li Er renamed it Yizhou.

At this time, this important place on the Silk Road became a large material storage center. The train transported countless materials over, fully demonstrating Datang's terrifying production and delivery capabilities.

But if you leave Illinois and send it forward, it will immediately fall from the primary industrial era to the level of the Middle Ages, relying entirely on horse-drawn carriages for transportation.

There was no shortage of carriages and horses, but the route was too long, and every time the convoy set out, there was a huge queue.

On this day it was another day when the convoy departed, and 3,000 Tang troops escorted a huge convoy of more than 10,000 auxiliaries to Tingzhou, which was hundreds of miles away.

Tingzhou is also a very famous place, originally called Luntai Kingdom, the Han Dynasty was destroyed by the second division general Li Guangli.

Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty set up a military tun here, that is, the Luntai garrison, and since then it has become the place where the capital of the Western Regions is located.

When the huge queue set off, Li Yunze motioned for the military band on the side of the road to start playing. There is no doubt that this must be pure music composed by Li Yunze himself, which he named "Distant Journey".

Whether it is the artistic conception or timbre, it is very in line with the mood of the soldiers on the expedition. Every time a soldier or horse set off from Yizhou, Li Yunze would let the military band play this piece to see off the soldiers.

The Western Regions were far away, and the soldiers came here far from home, in order to use iron and blood to restore the land of the Han Dynasty for Middle-earth.

The majestic music shook the heart, and the soldiers slowly rode their horses with solemn expressions. The captives on the construction site outside the city also silently watched the Tang Army go on the expedition, listening to the music that shook their hearts, and they only had envy in their hearts.

Compared with their hard lives, the Tang people are simply living a fairy-like life. Su Dingfang's advance was very fast, and the forwards had now hit the broken leaves, and they were fighting fiercely with the Western Turks.

Along the way, he destroyed countless countries, attacked the Western Turks and many Zahu tribes, and captured a large number of prisoners.

Most of the captives were sent back to the Tang Dynasty to fill the gaps in the mines and plantations. The other part was left by Li Yunze to work overtime to build railways and highways.

Li Yunze estimated that by the end of the year, the railway would be able to be repaired to the country of Luntai and Cheshi, which would extend the logistics supply line to the front line for more than 1,000 miles.

As for the Cheshi Kingdom, it is now under the jurisdiction of Luntai, and in the future the name of this place will be Urumqi.

It is also the main transportation route of the northern route of the Silk Road. Li Yunze, who sent off the transport team and returned to the city, received an urgent telegram from Su Dingfang.

biqμgètν.netSu Ding informed Li Yunze that the Western Turkic Yipilu Khan had sent an elite army of soldiers and horses to raid Yizhou.

There is no doubt that the Khan of Ebiru also knew the art of war. First attract Su Dingfang's main army to the distant four towns of Anxi and drag it, and then let the elite sneak from Jinshan cross the desert and directly attack Yizhou, the most important logistics town of the Tang army.

As long as Yizhou can be captured, it will not only be able to capture a large amount of various materials, but also cut off the logistical supply of the main force of the Tang Army on the front line.

Yibi Lu Khan calculated clearly that Su Dingfang's main force was far away in the four towns of Anxi. Thousands of miles away, when I got the news, it was at least a little more than a month later, and Yizhou had already been captured by that time.

Obviously, the Khan did not know that the Tang army had a telegram that could transmit news in an instant, nor did he know that the Tang army had a strong intelligence ability, so he learned the news early.

It's just that even if he learns the news, even if Su Dingfang desperately returns to the division to rescue, he won't be able to return to such a long distance without a month.

At this time, there were only four or five thousand Tang troops stationed in Yizhou, and there were tens of thousands of auxiliaries and civilians, but their combat effectiveness was worrying.

Many people urgently suggested to Li Yunze that he should quickly recall the transport team sent out before, and at least increase the regular army of 3,000 people.

But Li Yunze simply refused. The reason for his refusal is very strange in the eyes of everyone

"What if you come back and scare the Turks away?" The reason why there is such a statement is not because Li Yunze is full of self-confidence and feels that he can sweep thousands of armies with a stick.

Rather, he concluded that the Turks did not know the terror transport capacity of the railway.

"The soldiers and horses of Su Dingfang in front are too late to come back, but there are more Tang troops behind!"